MDOT’s deeds don’t match its videos

For the past year, the Michigan Department of Transportation has been engaged in activities that look a lot like lobbying for a tax increase.

It’s probably inappropriate for a department of state government to campaign for a tax increase, so we’ll give MDOT the benefit of the doubt over its “Reality Check” campaign.

MDOT has produced six videos for the Reality Check campaign, aimed to clear up “common myths and misconceptions about transportation in Michigan” to quote the agency’s website at http://bwne.ws/1DQZsAG. MDOT wants us to believe the most widespread myths and misconceptions are that state road agencies get enough money but that they’re not doing a good job with it.

MDOT’s videos ask us to believe that the only problem with Michigan roads is that they’re underfunded. MDOT asks us to believe that it is a good steward of the money that motorists, vehicle owners and taxpayers deliver into its hands.

Reality Check video No. 5 aims to debunk the notion that MDOT doesn’t know how to build roads that last and that it doesn’t hold contractors responsible when new roadways and repairs don’t hold up. MDOT says, “Michigan has high standards and tough warranties. Other factors are to blame for our crumbling roads.”

We wonder if MDOT has any idea what those factors might be.

Michigan Auditor General Doug Ringler, in a recent report on MDOT’s monitoring of road warranties, found the agency doesn’t properly inspect and follow up on completed projects and follow through to ensure deficiencies are corrected. As Blue Water Area motorists have learned from experience, poorly completed projects get fixed only when local officials and residents raise a hue and cry — the I-94 Business Loop project in Marysville comes to mind.

Warranties serve no purpose when the purchaser — MDOT — sets no standards, defines no expectations, and will take whatever the contractor delivers, too often without seeming to even look at it.

Not that post-construction inspections are the solution. Ringler’s audit found two cases in which MDOT inspectors found defective construction but didn’t warn the contractors until after the warranties had expired. The delay cost taxpayers $93,000 to correct the shoddy work.